Co-sponsoring with UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, and USF Center for the Pacific Rim, the Ricci Institute presents:

Jesuits & Medicine in China
at the Qing Imperial Court

Keynote public lecture for Friday, March 9 symposium:
Medicine & Culture: Chinese-Western Medical Exchange
(1644 -ca. 1950)
See below or click on title for details.

Thursday, March 8, 2007
5:45 PM - 7:00 PM
University of San Francisco
(Directions to USF)
Lone Mountain Campus,
Del Santo Reading Room
(2800 Turk between Masonic & Parker)

What kind of healing took place in the Qing imperial court during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (r.1662-1722)? Chinese physicians offered acupuncture, moxibustion, massage, and medicinal tonics. Yet, the Emperor disliked Chinese acupuncture, loathed the smell of mugwort, would never get a massage, scoffed at Taoist longevity practices, and expressed skepticism of southern tonics and restoratives. He was curious about “Western medicine” and the scientific knowledge of Jesuits in his court. From the Jesuits would come “Jesuit’s bark,” tonic wines, brandy, the surgeon’s scalpel, and an anatomical view of the human body.

According to the 1698 account of the French Jesuit Joachim Bouvet, the Emperor had become interested in Western medicine only after a member of their group had successfully used “Jesuit's bark/Cinchona” (modern-day quinine) to cure the Emperor of a malignant fever he had contracted during one of his southern tours in 1692. In response to this quinine-healing episode, Kangxi ordered a Manchu translation of Western
medicinal substances and even had a Jesuit botanist and pharmacist travel with him on some of his tours. The result of this initial interest in Western medicine would reach fruition about a quarter century later in the early 1720s with several copies of illustrated Western anatomy texts in Manchu.

Reading the writings of the Jesuits and the Kangxi Emperor on medicine together provides a unique window on the medical pluralism, the Chinese-Western exchange of therapies, concepts, and images of the body, and the range of therapies practiced within the Manchu court of the early Qing dynasty.

Keynote Speaker:  Marta Hanson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of History of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Prof. Hanson holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in the History and Sociology of Science. She has written numerous articles on medical regionalism, gender and medicine, and Manchu medical sources in late imperial China. Her book manuscript is titled "Speaking of Epidemics: New Genres and Currents of Learning in Qing Medicine."

For information, call 415-422-6401, or e-mail ricci@usfca.edu.

The Ricci Institute at the USF Center for the Pacific Rim presents

Medicine & Culture: Chinese-Western Medical Exchange
(1644 - ca.1950)

Friday, March 9, 2007
University of San Francisco
(Directions to USF)
Lone Mountain Campus, LM100
(2800 Turk between Masonic & Parker)

Please click here to download a registration form. (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open, view and/or download the registration form. Click to download a free Adobe Reader.)

For information, call 415-422-6401.

The symposium will be an examination of the interaction between China and the West through medicine and pharmacology from the Qing dynasty through the early 1950s. The aim of the symposium is to provide a forum for the examination of themes related to this interaction, such as: social and cultural roles, social reform, education, cultural exchange, encounters with Christianity, relations of power, modernity, and issues of race and gender.

Featured speakers include:
Keynote:  Marta Hanson, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine
Jesuits & Medicine in China at the Qing Imperial Court

Qiong Zhang, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale; Larissa Heinrich, University of New South Wales; Bridie Andrews Minehan, Bentley College; Michelle Renshaw, University of Adelaide; Shang-Jen Li, Academia Sinica; Hugh Shapiro, University of Nevada; Cristina Zaccarini, Adelphi University; Tina Phillips Johnson, St. Vincent College

Announcing the 22nd National Catholic China Conference

Experiencing Jesus Christ through Chinese Eyes

November 3-5, 2006
Atlanta, Georgia

Co-sponsors:
Ricci Institute at the University of San Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim

This conference will examine how Chinese cultural, social, intellectual, theological, artistic and other perspectives reflect, as through a prism, dimensions which will enrich our shared understanding of Jesus Christ. We seek to learn more deeply about the Faith life and spiritual journey of the living Church in China in its own context.

Program Highlights: Keynote Papers, Panel, Focused Discussion Groups, Liturgy and Prayer, Resources Exhibit, and Chinese Cultural Evening

Resource Persons
Rachel ZHU Xiaohong, Fudan University, Visiting Scholar at Yale Divinity School
Rev. Paul SHI Hui Min, China Catholic Institute of Philosophy and Theology
Cecilia TAO Beiling, Guang Qi Catholic Press, Shanghai

Eucharistic Liturgy - Celebrant and homilist:
Cardinal Paul Kuo-hsi SHAN, Kaohsiung Diocese, Taiwan

For more information, or to register, contact
Barbara McCarthy
US Catholic China Bureau
Seton Hall University
South Orange, NJ 07079
E-mail: chinabur@shu.edu
Tel: 973-763-1131
Fax: 973-763-1543

Announcement for An International Symposium

Christianity and Cultures: Japan and China in Comparison (1543-1644)

November 30–December 2, 2006
Macau, China

Co-Sponsors:
Ricci Institute at the University of San Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim, U.S.A.
Macau Ricci Institute, China

Click to see the Symposium Schedule and Program.

To register, please fill out the registration form, fax to The Macau Ricci Institute: (853) 568 274,or e-mail as an attached document to symp2006@riccimac.org No later than November 11, 2006. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open, view and/or download the registration form. Click to download a free Adobe Reader.

The present symposium aims to bring together leading Sinologists and Japanologists from around the world engaged in research on the history of Christianity in Japan and in China. It takes as its point of departure the 400th anniversary of the death of Alessandro Valignano, S.J. (1539–1606), one of the first Europeans to articulate a clear policy of religious and cultural engagement with the civilizations of China and Japan.

This symposium aims to foster a comparative and interdisciplinary approach by adopting a format that includes both short formal papers and interactive panel discussions. This will allow scholars not only to present their own research but also to explore jointly with other specialists the similarities and differences between newly emerging models of Christianity among the Japanese and the Chinese. Each panel will focus on a specific theme that illustrates and compares the elaborationand development of new expressions of Christian culture in the two countries.

More specifically, scholars will concentrate on early Christian texts in translation, works of art, the development of new forms of Christian ritual, local community organization, etc., in late Ming China and Warring States / early Tokugawa Japan (ca. 1543–1644). Such modes of interaction with local cultures, while originally relying on European models, were adapted over time by the missionaries and prominent local Christians to and transformed by the East Asian cultural matrix. How these processes evolved historically in Japan and inChina will be the main focus of the symposium. A number of scholars will also explore the unique role played by Macau, the port-city that was at the diplomatic, economic, and religious crossroads between East Asia and Europe and that facilitated these encounters between faith and culture. The official languages of the symposium will be English, (Mandarin) Chinese, and Japanese. Simultaneous translation will be provided. Please check this website periodically for further detailed information and updates.